Hospitality groups urge end to penalty rates

Business groups have set their sights on weekend penalty rates for hospitality workers, applying to Fair Work Australia to have them scrapped.

Restaurant and Catering Australia, the New South Wales Business Chamber and a number of individual employers say the rates, introduced under modern award agreements in 2009, are crippling businesses and forcing many to close at weekends.

Employees who work on Saturdays in a restaurant or cafe are entitled to a 25 per cent penalty, while those who work on a Sunday receive a 50 per cent penalty, with a loading of up to 100 per cent if they receive a casual or night rate.

Restaurant and Catering Australia chief executive John Hart says hospitality workers should be paid penalties only if they have to work more than five days in a row.

"They should get paid penalties if it's the sixth and seventh day of work. If it's not, and they're working ... Wednesday to Sunday, then they shouldn't get paid penalties because basically the restaurants can't afford to open if they do," Mr Hart said.

Mr Hart says businesses are increasingly closing on weekends because opening on those days is becoming prohibitive due to the costs of penalty rates.

"Seventy per cent of businesses are closing on a day this year that they didn't last - whether that's a Sunday or a weekend, or a public holiday, in fact," he said.

New South Wales Business Chamber chief executive Stephen Cartwright says the notion that weekend work must be compensated is out of date in a 24/7 society.

"Twenty, 30 years ago Saturdays and Sundays were sacrosanct and nobody opened on the weekends, but that's well and truly gone these days and everybody's lifestyle is very different," Mr Cartwright said.

But unions disagree; United Voice national secretary Louise Tarrant says this argument has never before been accepted, despite having been presented to Fair Work Australia and previous industrial relations bodies.

"At the end of the day our community has a view that if people work at weekends, or in those times when normally people have social time or downtime, they should be compensated for that," Ms Tarrant said.

Business groups concede that their application to Fair Work Australia may not succeed, but they hope at the very least they result in some sort of change to current pay arrangements.